Bankers urged to be proactive in lending

Coimbatore District Collector M. Karunagaran has urged bankers to be proactive in lending to the needy.

Releasing the Annual Credit Plan 2013-14 for the district, Karunagaran observed that the credit outlay had grown almost 300 per cent since 2001. While hailing credit growth, the Collector said, “after discounting for inflation, the real increase in actually less. There is a need to translate more and increase credit to the needy,” he said.

Credit outlay

The credit plan for 2013-14 envisages an credit outlay of Rs 8,433 crore, up 25.73 per cent compared to the 2012-13 outlay of Rs 6,706.05 crore.

The sums earmarked for agri and allied sectors saw the highest increase of 30.59 per cent at Rs 3,560 crore (Rs 2,726.05 crore), followed by the outlay for the SME (non-farm) sector at Rs 3,389 crore, which is 26 per cent over the previous year’s outlay of Rs 2,690 crore and for other priority sector at Rs 1,484 crore (Rs 1,291 crore).

An amount of Rs 100 crore has been earmarked for SHGs in this plan.

Lead Bank Manager Vanangamudi said that the plan was prepared after taking into account the level of achievement under the credit plan during the current year, the Potential Linked Plan prepared by Nabard, various credit linked subsidy schemes of the State and Centre and the importance given to SHG financing.

Major share of the credit plan was taken up by Canara Bank (11 per cent), followed by State Bank of India (10 per cent), Indian Overseas Bank (9 per cent) and Indian Bank (8 per cent).

There are 560 branches of various banks in this district.

Stressing the need for paying more attention to agri and allied sector credit, the Collector said, “the cooperative banks have been rescheduling agri credit. The Government-run banks should also take some initiative on this line.”